Robert Kardashian’s Former House

Last October, while I was knee-deep in my Haunted Hollywood postings, fellow stalker/prolific author E.J., of The Movieland Directory website, emailed me to let me know about his book Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites: Sixteen Driving Tours with Directions and the Full Story, from Tallulah Bankhead to River Phoenix, which he thought I might be interested in.  Well, one look at the tome on Amazon and I knew I had to have it!  When it arrived, I devoured the thing in two sittings and practically filled up my entire To-Stalk notebook with new addresses, the most exciting of which was the Encino home where Robert Kardashian lived in June 1994 and where O.J. Simpson supposedly stayed in the interval leading up to his arrest for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.  In fact, it was from there that O.J. left on the morning of his infamous slow-speed white Ford Bronco chase.  That day in Simpson’s life has always fascinated me as there are so many unanswered questions about it.  What led up to that infamous chase?  Where was O.J. coming from and where was he headed?  So, after reading the blurb about the house in E.J.’s book, I just had to run right out and stalk the place.

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According to a June 18, 1994 Los Angeles Times article, Kardashian leased the gargantuan contemporary dwelling, which sticks out quite a bit from the ranch-style homes which surround it, about a month prior to the murders, after the builders failed to sell the place.  I believe that Kardashian lived there, along with then fiancé Denice Shakarian Halicki, for only a very short time.

As the story goes, on the morning of Friday, June 17th, 1994, O.J. Simpson was charged with the double murder of Ron and Nicole and was set to turn himself in to the LAPD at their headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.  His lawyer, Robert Shapiro, later changed the plan and asked instead for O.J. to be taken into custody at Kardashian’s home, where the football star had been hiding out from the media with his then girlfriend Paula Barbieri.  (It was a good hiding place, too – according to the same L.A Times article, none of the neighbors had any idea The Juice was there.)  When the police showed up, though, Simpson was long gone.  Sometime that morning, he had disappeared from the residence with his good friend and college roommate, Al Cowlings, and headed towards Orange County, either to visit Nicole’s grave at Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest or to escape to Mexico, depending upon which version of the story you believe.  The LAPD issued an all-points bulletin for O.J. and Cowlings at 2 p.m. and, according to Wikipedia, about four hours later someone in the O.C. spotted the duo and notified police, who later found them driving north on the 405 freeway.  What followed became television history.

Kardashian’s former home, which was originally built in 1957, but drastically remodeled shortly before he moved in, boasts five bedrooms, five baths, 7,104 square feet of living space, and a 0.40-acre plot of land.  The dwelling was last sold in 1997 for $830,000, but appears to have been put on the market again recently during which time it was described as a “fixer-upper.”

Property records also show that some sort of movie shoot took place on the premises in March 2000, but I am unsure of what exactly was filmed.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER.  And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to E.J., from The Movieland Directory website, for telling me about this location!    You can purchase his Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites book here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Robert Kardashian’s former home, where O.J. stayed before his infamous car chase and subsequent arrest, is located at 16254 Mandalay Drive in Encino.